FREE NEWSLETTER: Econintersect sends a nightly newsletter highlighting news events of the day, and providing a summary of new articles posted on the website. Econintersect will not sell or pass your email address to others per our privacy policy. You can cancel this subscription at any time by selecting the unsubscribing link in the footer of each email.

Congress' seem to have little ability to move the Trump agenda forward - and this killed any momentum in the markets. Even crude flat lined. The only upward movement came from gold (and not much positive movement).

Todays S&P 500 Chart

The Market in Perspective

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Snap Inc shares tumbled below $20 on Thursday for the first time since the company's $3.4 billion public listing after the Snapchat owner received another "sell" rating from an analyst.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. homebuilding jumped in February as unseasonably warm weather boosted the construction of single-family houses to near a 9-1/2-year high, suggesting the economy remained on solid ground despite an apparent slowdown in the first quarter.

BERLIN (Reuters) - Carmakers and suppliers gave widely differing timelines for the introduction of self-driving vehicles on Thursday, showing the uncertainties surrounding the technology as well as a split between cautious established players and bullish new entrants.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Federal Reserve raised interest rates on Wednesday for the second time in three months, a move spurred by steady economic growth, strong job gains and confidence that inflation is rising to the central bank's target.

LONDON (Reuters) - The British government has referred Rupert Murdoch's planned 11.7 billion pound ($14.4 billion) takeover of European pay-TV group Sky to regulators to decide if the deal is in the public interest.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States on Wednesday charged two Russian intelligence agents and two hackers with masterminding the 2014 theft of 500 million Yahoo accounts, the first time the U.S. government has criminally charged Russian spies for cyber offences.

DETROIT/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A federal judge in Detroit on Thursday ordered that a Volkswagen AG executive charged in the automaker's diesel emissions scandal be detained until his trial set for next year, agreeing with prosecutors that the German national represented a flight risk.

"The simple message is the economy is doing well. We have confidence in the robustness of the economy and its resilience to shocks." - Janet Yellen, March 15, 2017.

Really?

Because while you saying that the GDP NowCast from the Atlanta Fed just collapsed from nearly 3% at the beginning of the year, to just 0.9% currently.

The problem, as has been a continued issue with the Fed's projections, is the expanse between the Fed's "fantasy" and economic realities. This is shown in the table below which documents the median of the Fed's economic projections versus what actually happens. In every single year, the March projections have consistently been revised lower.

Yet, besides being the world's worst economic forecasters, the market still believes every statement she makes.

It seems Yellen's desperate attempt to tell the world that the US economy is doing fantastic BUT not well enough to raise rate more than 3 times appears to have let stocks hope down. Combine that with ECB comments and uncertainty over Trump's budget and the political 'put' rallied as stocks sank...

If you're wondering who would want to buy an Internet-enabled washing machine, you're not alone. Even Whirlpool's not so sure.

"We're a little bit of a hammer looking for a nail right now," Chris Quatrochi, Whirlpool's global director of user experience and connectivity, said last week at a conference hosted by tech blog Gigaom. The buyers of web-connected washers, more than a year after launch, are still "not at all widespread," he said. "Trying to understand exactly the value proposition that you provide to the consumer," he said, "has been a little bit of a challenge."

It's a big concession from one of the most notable champions of the buzzy "Internet of Things" ....

As Digital Trends blogger John Sciacca put it: "Have we gotten so pathetically lame that you need to be notified by an email that your laundry is done?"

Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) and a group of his colleagues are calling on the newly appointed Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to immediately investigate how US taxpayer funds are being used by the State Department and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) to support Soros-backed, leftist political groups in several Eastern European countries including Macedonia and Albania. According to the letter, potentially millions of taxpayer dollars are being funneled through USAID to Soros' Open Society Foundations with the explicit goal of pushing his progressive agenda.

"Unfortunately, we have received a credible report that, over the past few years, the U.S. Mission there has actively intervened in the party politics of Macedonia, as well as in the shaping of its media environment and civil society, often favoring left-leaning political group over others. We find these reports discoraging and, if true, highly problematic."

"Much of the concerning activity in Macedonia has been perpetuated through USAID funds awarded to implementing entities such as George Soros' Open Society Foundations. As the recipient of multiple grant awards and serving as a USAID contractor implementing projects in this small nation of 2.1 million people, our taxpayer funded foreign aid goes far, allowing Foundation Open Society - Macedonia (FOSM) to push a progressive agenda and invigorate the political left. Our foreign aid should only be used to promote a political agenda if it is in the security or economic interests of our country to do so, and even at that, we must be cautious and respectful in such an endeavor. We should be especially wary of ...

The BLS Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) can be used as a predictor of future jobs growth, and the predictive elements show that the year-over-year growth rate of unadjusted private non-farm job openings again were again insignificantly changed from last month.

Four North Korean banks that were still able to use the Swift money-transfer messaging system despite U.S. Treasury sanctions will be deactivated from the network in coming days, leaving none of the country's banks with access.

Notre Dame, a repeat Elite Eight force the last two years, squeaked past Princeton — its first lost since before Christmas — as the NCAA men's basketball tournament Round of 64 got rolling on Thursday.

The growing use of ad blocking software is creating a shortfall in covering our fixed expenses. Please consider a donation to Econintersect to allow continuing output of quality and balanced financial and economic news and analysis.

Keep up with economic news using our dynamic economic newspapers with the largest international coverage on the internet